A friend of mine who studied geology at Rhodes University has been unemployed since we graduated with our honours degrees three years ago.
Another friend who did her Bachelor of Commerce majoring in legal theory, followed by an LLB at Wits University, has opted to do a masters in international law after she struggled to secure articles following her graduation.
A few weeks ago, I received an email from a classmate at the University of Johannesburg, who was asking me to help secure a job as he had been battling to do so for years.
Like me, the masters in urban and regional planning that he is pursuing is his second masters degree. He has not worked his entire life.
His story resembles that of many of my friends and acquaintances — young men and women who did everything right to position themselves well in this knowledge-based economy.
They went to university to study for qualifications that are relevant to an industrialising country. They all have a minimum of an honours degree, though a significant number hold masters degrees and one even holds a PhD in chemistry.
They have been applying for jobs for years and it is proving to be a Herculean task.
One friend who holds a masters degree in development economics stated that she is afraid of doing a PhD because she may be deemed overqualified for entry-level jobs. And yet, she does not want to sit home doing nothing.
The latest Quarterly Labour Force Survey published by StatsSA a week ago shows that the official unemployment rate increased to 34.9% in the third quarter of 2021.
The unemployment rate by expanded definition, which includes people who have given up looking for work, rose to 46.2%.
In the Eastern Cape province, the rate stands at 54.5% — the highest in the country.
When you live in a country like SA, where the unemployment rate stands at such staggering levels and includes a significant number of graduates, it is easy to believe that there’s little value in education.
This is especially true for young black people, who represent more than 90% of the 64.4% of unemployed youth.
The situation is not necessarily better for black graduates, many of whom are underemployed.
This means that while they may be employed, it is often in jobs in which they’re misplaced or in highly exploitative internships.
In a segmented and highly racialised labour market, this has significant implications for their prospects of upward mobility.
Despite this, I believe in the value of education. Our stagnant and untransformed economy, rather than education, is the problem.
In a functional economy, graduates shouldn’t be standing on street corners holding placards begging for jobs. They shouldn’t be battling to secure them as my educated friends are.
That this is happening in our country is an indictment on our leadership (in both the public and private sectors) which does not have the necessary political will to make the difficult decisions that need to be made about the nature and structure of the economy. It is not an indictment on education itself.
Regardless of the prevailing material conditions as pertains to unemployment and barriers to entry into the labour market, young people must pursue higher education.
We must be intentional in our attainment of qualifications because we can still make contributions even as it is evident that it may have to be outside the confines of these borders.
But to argue against education based on graduate unemployment is a fallacy of composition, one which, understandable though it may be, is fatalistic.
For working-class black youth in particular, who do not possess any social or economic capital, education is quite literally the bridge across our structural problems.
I hope we never become so demotivated by this unemployment crisis that we start viewing education as useless.